For this edition of the contest, 11 groundbreaking biomedical and health projects spearheaded by research institutions and universities in Portugal were selected. This funding underscores the commitment of the “la Caixa” Foundation to champion projects of unparalleled excellence that stand to significantly benefit public health.

Listed below is more information about the seven awardees from the four COLife institutes and their projects.

Artificial Intelligence is all around us, accelerating medical drug development, selecting what content we see across social media or outclassing us on the most human of tasks from driving to medical diagnoses. The transformational power of AI has the potential to alter our society as profoundly as the agricultural and industrial revolutions, but how did we get here?

What is intelligence, and why do we seek to replicate it artificially? 

When did the AI revolution begin, and can you recall your first encounter with AI? 

If a teacup is steaming, you’ll wait a bit longer before drinking from it. And if your fingers get caught in the door, you'll be more careful next time. These are forms of associative learning, where a positive or negative experience leads to learning behavior. We know that our cerebellum is important in this form of learning. But how exactly does this work?

On behalf of the Champalimaud Research Programme on Digital Therapeutics led by Dr. John Krakauer and Dr. Joe Paton, we'd like to invite you to the workshop on interactive AI systems. At Digital Therapeutics group, our mission is to leverage cutting-edge technology to create evidence-based, personalised medical interventions to prevent, manage, or treat a broad spectrum of physical, mental, and behavioural conditions.

In this audio interview, Gonçalo explains how this grant will fund ongoing work on Lesional Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) that is being developed in collaboration with several members of the Neuropsychiatry Unit. The proposal is to use the results from this work to test a new treatment for OCD through transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which will include the Neuropsychiatry Unit’s first clinical trial using therapeutic TMS.
 

Listen to the full audio recording to find out more!

Understanding Treatment-Resistant Depression

Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) is a particularly challenging form of major depressive disorder. As Albino Oliveira-Maia, head of the Champalimaud Foundation’s Neuropsychiatry Unit and the study’s national coordinator for Portugal, explains, “TRD is defined as the persistence of depressive symptoms despite adequate courses of at least two different antidepressant medications”. Despite repeated therapeutic attempts, these patients’ depressive symptoms remain.

Why we have a brain

“The brain’s primary function is movement”, explains Claudia Feierstein, lead author of the study published today in Current Biology. “Plants don’t need a brain because they don’t move. Yet, even for something as seemingly simple as eye movements, the brain’s role remains largely enigmatic. Our goal is to illuminate this ‘black box’ of motion and to decode how neural activity controls eye and body movements, using zebrafish as our model organism”.

The distinguished recipients from Portugal are Giulia Ghedini and Ilana Gabanyi from the Gulbenkian Science Institute (IGC) and Carlos Minutti of the Champalimaud Foundation. The principal investigators will be granted between €1.5-1.9M each to develop their research proposals over the next five years.

Why Adult Plasticity Matters

Much like young children who swiftly acquire languages in their early years, our visual system also has a “critical period” during the first few years of life where rapid development occurs. After this time, changes become more difficult, following the old adage, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. Indeed, many treatments aimed at restoring vision, such as those addressing congenital cataracts or “lazy eye”, are only effective before the age of 7.

Champalimaud Foundation (Fundação D. Anna de Sommer Champalimaud e Dr. Carlos Montez Champalimaud), a private, non-profit research institution in Lisbon, Portugal, is looking for a Junior Digital Pathology Scientist to join our Histopathology Platform team, at the Champalimaud Research Programme. 

The selected candidate will

Work closely with senior experimental pathologists and laboratory staff to support a variety of research projects, in the field of digital pathology. Responsibilities will include: